Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 11, November 1982

The Murder of Mr. Excitement by Michael Avallone

Somebody wanted him dead in the worst way — and that’s the way he got it!

I was backstage at the Dover Theatre trying to help Captain Michael Monks of Homicide solve a murder. One of the newsiest and most celebrated of his long career with the New York Police Department.

The Tan Hat Man had been running on Broadway for three hit months when a pistol shot sounded like a cough during the middle of Act Two and leading man Walter Wiley pitched off the apron of the stage into the orchestra pit — dead. That’s a long sentence but it gives some idea of the length of Walter Wiley’s hold on the public. Also, there hadn’t been a murder in a playhouse since Lincoln.

Not even the hastily-struck overture by the baffled musicians could drown out the screams of a terrified matinee audience. Theatre parties and vacationing matrons from the Coast and Mid-West had packed the plush seats of the Dover. The death of Walter Wiley stunned the entertainment world. Or so the Manhattan tabloids blared. Broadway’s Mr. Excitement — the singing, dancing sensation known as Walter Wiley had been strangely, inexplicably murdered. I’m quoting again.

Like the assassination of Honest Abe, an unknown killer had struck from the audience. But the cops didn’t even have a John Wilkes Booth to contend with. Walter Wiley’s murderer remained. Nobody for three whole days while the official police machinery rolled. Producer David Merrick fumed, but kept on selling tickets for The Tan Hat Man. He would re-open when Monks found the murderer.

“A theatre crowd of fifteen hundred people,” Monks groaned at me over a bottle of pop. “Might just as well have been Yankee Stadium.”

“Take it easy,” I said. “It’s not as bad as all that.”

Monks’ smile was sheer irony. “No? Pray tell us more. I’m not using your private crystal ball, Noon.”

“Since when did you let numbers bother you? Fifteen hundred customers. So what? You can whittle that down.”

“I’m still listening, Noon.”

“Okay. Wiley was killed with a .22. Through the heart. Front and center. A perfect shot under any conditions. Knowing what you know about .22’s, you can eliminate the mezzanine and second balcony. The distance is too great.”

Monks scowled and put the empty pop bottle down behind one of the flats that was designed to represent a Manhattan skyline. “Go on.”

“Also, you couldn’t shoot a man onstage from a sitting position. Not in a packed house with someone sitting in front of you. Wiley was center stage when he fell. He hadn’t moved for a good two minutes before the shot. I know this show. Saw it last month and remember the stage business. Wiley was singing The Tan Hat Man. You know — where he stands still marking time like a soldier with a cane slung over his shoulder. So you know he was shot while he was standing there facing his adoring public.”

“So?”

“So the killer stood up in the dark to fire. And since from the standpoint of range, we eliminate the last twenty rows of the orchestra section — at least twenty — I’d say your killer had to be placed somewhere from Rows A to D. Or E.”

Monks now regarded me with almost a detached air. Too often my meandering led somewhere. Since he had long ago decided to allow a private detective the greatest of latitudes in Headquarters affairs, he knew this could be another of those times.

“All right, Ed. What about the musicians? Remember them? The pit would place them right in front of Wiley.”

“No good, Mike. The killer would have been seen. Also, he would have had to fire up. A Broadway orchestra is always below stage level. The trajectory of the slug in Wiley’s heart showed the barest angle of entry. Far too gradual for a shot from the pit. The bullet had to come from Row A on.”

Monks sighed. “Okay. So you like that location. So we checked all the ticket holders in that area. So we found out it was a high-priced theatre party from Rhode Island. So we found no one with a motive for killing a Broadway star. For most of them, it was the first time they’d seen the great Wiley. So what?”

I took a memo pad out of my coat. Once Monks had given me the go-ahead on his murder case, I’d done a little snooping.

“I’ve checked the stagehands, ushers and candy concession crowd. Also the doormen and porters. And a guy named Terrini who’s Head Electrician. Seems he roams the whole building, front and back, while the show is on, to make sure things run smoothly during a performance. Ever since the first rehearsals and tryouts, The Tan Hat Man has been one big happy family. No bad blood in any department.”

“Terrini wears glasses thicker than milk bottles,” Monks grumbled. “And has double vision to boot. I ruled him out, on your theory, the first time I talked to him. And the rest of them—”

I read aloud from my list. “Porters: Jess Tompkins, Harry Lee, Sam Patterson. All blacks. They live in Manhattan, are all married and wouldn’t have been inside the theatre proper while the show was on. It isn’t permitted. Now the ushers downstairs are Mary Williams, Ada Perkins and Louisa Jones. They are all middle-aged dolls, been working the Dover for years and from my viewpoint have a hard enough time handling their flashlights let alone a .22. The candy concession and cloakroom boys are Tom Manhattan, Ed Fairlow and an executive type named Guba who runs the stand. They all can move around willy-nilly once the curtain goes up. Manhattan and Fairlow, like most people who work these jobs, are aspiring actors, making a few bucks working Broadway shows as candy butchers and such. Of course, there’s more ushers and suspects upstairs but counting on the angle about the .22 and the range, I rule them out.”

Monks showed his teeth. “Don’t remind me. We’ve been all over your list. If you’re trying to tell me I’m a long way off from home, I agree with you.”

“No, Michael.” I smiled, putting the memo pad away. “With the means of killing fairly well fixed in our minds and ruling out the greater part of the audience the way we have and finding the .22 buried in a sand urn in the Men’s Room, I’d say you had a good chance. Fact is, I’ve narrowed the list of suspects down to two.”

“Noon, if you don’t stop acting like a television dick, I swear I’ll never invite you in on a Homicide again. You can’t possibly have spotted something Headquarters hasn’t. This place has been gone over with a fine tooth comb—”

I held up a restraining hand, sensing one of his lectures.

“The advantages of my racket, Michael, is that I don’t have anyone to answer to like you have. No pressure. I did see something you didn’t.”

“What for God’s sakes?”

“Give me five minutes to try something?”

Monks started to say something then shrugged. The Bickford shrug. The one that almost dislocates his shoulders. He always gave me my head when the chips were down. I walked to the dimness of Stage Left and said what I had to say to the policeman on duty there. Monks watched, the scowl on his face deepening. For three days, the Dover had been staked out for surveillance and examination and for three days, all the people who had been on duty, including the cast, reported for work just as if the show was still running. The cast had been excluded from my pet theory almost from the first moment I had learned the direction of the .22 bullet that had found Walter Wiley’s glorious heart.

Almost immediately, two men in maroon uniforms emerged from the gloom of Stage Left. The cop took up his position again.

Men. They were boys. Tousled-haired, defiantly young. Over the breastpocket of each uniform was proclaimed, in golden thread, the sponsorship Of the Dover Theatre.

“This won’t take long, fellows,” I said cheerily. “Captain Monks, these are two of the ushers. Tom Manhattan and Ed Fairlow. They’re actors, of course, but they earn their living working theatres like the Dover between jobs. Before that first Big Break.”

The ushers grinned at that, sheepishly chuckling. But they both looked uncomfortable. I was counting on that too.

Monks smiled a sour greeting and beetled his brows at me. I nodded and got down to business. Monks was never long a patience.

“Tom,” I said suddenly. “Wiley’s dead now so there’s no use hiding your star under a bushel. Everybody knows you write a lot. Plays, stories.”

Tom Manhattan blinked. He was thin, nervous and handsome in a helpless, petulant way. “I don’t get you, Mister.”

I tried to look sympathetic. “I’ve been talking around to people in the business. You know — places like Downey’s and the Theatre Bar. And everyone backstage knows the secret, too. Common knowledge, you might say. I know this show is yours — the idea for it, I mean. You were foolish enough to give Walter Wiley the whole plot one night in Downey’s. You thought his name and rep would help you sell it. It did but not the way you wanted it. He stole the whole idea for himself and got it going before you could holler foul to Equity. With his own writer.”

Manhattan shook his head. “You’re putting me oh, Mister. Me and this show—?”

“Is it so crazy?” I asked quietly. “Manhattan.” I spelled it. “M-A-N-H-A-T-T-A-N.” I smiled at the other boy. “Go ahead, Fairlow. Tell him what you told me.”

“Me?” Fairlow was shorter and heavier than Manhattan. He jumped as if I’d thrust a live snake into his face. “Why I never—”

“Fink!” Tom Manhattan shrilled, leaping for his partner. “You promised me on your mother’s grave you wouldn’t talk! You crummy dirty fink—” He went for Fairlow, arms pumping, fists balled. Fair-low fell back in amazement.

Before Manhattan could reach him, I stepped in, chopping a Judo blow to the boy’s stomach. Manhattan collapsed, staggered off from his partner and would have lurched off the apron of the stage but Monk’s alert cop on duty grabbed him in time.

“Take it easy, kid,” I said softly. “Sit down and make your statement. The Captain will be listening.”

Mike Monks listened, now without awe, as Tom Manhattan confessed to the murder of Walter Wiley. The motive had been revenge; the emotion one of pure Show Biz hatred for a man who had robbed an aspiring actor’s mind of an idea for a hit show and then reneged on the payoff. It’s happened before and I guess it will happen again when Ego is the dividing line between Comedy and Tragedy.

After Tom Manhattan had been led away in shining handcuffs with a bewildered Ed Fairlow in tow, Monks really gave me a pop-eyed once-over.

“Would you mind telling me how you pulled that bluff off? I’ve seen you in action a million times, Ed, but that was the biggest rabbit of them all.”

“Was it?”

“Damn tooting. You didn’t give him a shred of incriminating evidence and he folded. Come on — what was the trick?”

“No bluff, Mike. I told you about the location and the seating arrangement. The killing had to be performed by someone standing up. So who would be less noticeable than an usher who’s always on his feet and always in a darkened aisle?”

“All right, all right. I buy that much. But Manhattan wasn’t the only usher. What about the lady ushers? Why did you concentrate on him?”

I took out my Camels and unsaddled one.

“I told you. Those dames are all old and I couldn’t see them wandering into the Men’s Room to bury the .22 in a sand urn.”

“Still not enough. What about Fairlow? And where did you get that junk about the show — stealing the idea and all—?”

“Tom Manhattan himself,” I said. “Or else there is no argument for coincidence. His funny name. Why do you think I spelled it out for him?”

“Edward Noon,” Captain Michael Monks said officially. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Tan Hat Man,” I said. “A demonstration of pure effective Ego. Actors are all would-be writers, anyway. And vice versa. I’ve never known an actor who didn’t think he was capable of writing fiction or plays or anything.”

“Noon—” Monks rumbled warningly.

“Manhattan,” I smiled thinly. “The Tan Hat Man. It’s an anagram, Mike, and a personal signature if there ever was one. Man-hat-tan... tan-hat-man...”

“Ouch,” Monks groaned.

“That’s what Walter Wiley must have said when that .22 slug hit him on stage.”

That was all there really was to the murder of Mr. Excitement. Death in the afternoon for the wholesome heart throb of generations of married women, spinsters and divorcees. It had all come to a sensational finale with a tiny leaden pellet of .22 calibre lead. According to some other un-nice things that Monks and his boys found out about Mr. Walter Wiley’s peccadilloes, he had had a date with that slug for a long, long time.

The curtain hadn’t been rung down on a Star.

The set had been struck on a Number One Heel.

But in the best tradition of Show Biz, The Tan Hat Man opened again two weeks after Tom Manhattan was booked for a lifetime performance in Ossining, New York. The show did a bonanza box-office business, helped by the headlines and augmented by the presence of another star of the first magnitude. Hollywood’s own Victor Vining.

They tell me The Tan Hat Man will be a movie in a couple of years. The Coast bought the screen rights for two million bucks.

That really is Show Biz.